Chase Bank's Online Customers Stunned to See $0 Balances

Chase Bank (JPM) experienced an embarrassing glitch earlier this week, when online customers were either unable to access their accounts or, more troubling, saw their balances listed as $0. The problems presented themselves on Monday to users logging in to Chase's online banking service via computers and mobile devices.

Chase's social customer service team began the day sounding feisty and refreshed:

But by late afternoon, after confused or angry customers posted screenshots of zero balances and "unavailable" messages on social media and demanded answers, the Chase team had cause to sound first alarmed, then apologetic:

​The company told news outlets no hacking was involved. "We have a technology problem regarding customers' balance information that we are working to resolve," Chase told the computer news site CNET. "It has nothing [to do with] cyberthreats; it's an internal issue. We are very sorry to our customers for the inconvenience."

Three hours after the initial alert, Chase Support tweeted that the problem had been fixed, saying Chase.com and mobile were "back to business as usual".

CBS News reports that the hacktivist collective Anonymous claimed responsibility on Twitter, but that no evidence supports the claim. Anonymous has targeted financial institutions and payment processors in the past; the group gained public notoriety after targeting Visa (V), MasterCard (MA) and PayPal (EBAY) in retaliation for those services' refusal to process donations to WikiLeaks.